Lord Chief Justice Taylor

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 30:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety two, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:28

My castaway this week is the country's most senior serving judge. His recent appointment comes at a time when public confidence in the law is bruised following a series of miscarriages of justice. His views are liberal rather than radical. He would like to see more openness in the legal system and has plans to do away with some of its more antiquated trappings, such as wigs and robes. The son of a Newcastle doctor, he came to public prominence as the man who led the inquiry into the Hillsborough Stadium disaster. He loves sport and music too. Indeed, if he hadn't been a lawyer, he might have become a professional pianist. He is the Lord Chief Justice of England, Peter Taylor.

Presenter1:06

Your new job, Lord Taylor, has been described by one leading member of the judiciary as the most awful job in the world, and another one called it gruelling, and two of your predecessors at least have cracked under the strain. Why did you want to do it?

Lord Chief Justice Taylor1:20

I suppose the challenge one doesn't seek to do it, but when the invitation comes

Lord Chief Justice Taylor1:26

It's um hard to resist it, and uh I think if one did say no, one would feel somewhat wimpish afterwards.

Presenter1:32

You're also um sixty two, which is no great age, but nevertheless I suppose in any other profession you'd be contemplating retirement.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor1:39

Oh, yes. Um uh many of my college friends and uh and school friends uh are retired and uh I seem to be starting the major job.

Presenter1:47

Do you think that's a bit odd? Do you think the judiciary's out of line in that sense?

Lord Chief Justice Taylor1:51

Well, I think you do require a good deal of experience before you're likely to make a a judge, a successful and just judge.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor2:00

because you'll have to have seen what it's all like at the lower level.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor2:04

But uh I think that there ought to be a limit on how long judges go on, and I'm rather in favour of reducing the retiring age from the present age of seventy-five, at at at any rate to seventy.

Presenter2:14

Hmm.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor2:15

which I think would be more realistic.

Presenter2:16

So that gives you eight years in the job, does it?

Lord Chief Justice Taylor2:19

Well, it could do.

Presenter2:21

But is that the feeling, then, that the sort of the wisdom of Solomon comes with age, as far as judges are concerned?

Lord Chief Justice Taylor2:26

I don't know about the wisdom of Solomon. I think you either have judgment or you don't, but I think you need a lot of experience before you can see your way through the complexities of cases and uh realize what the what justice requires.

Presenter2:38

Well now we offer you here um a a kind of retirement, a respite really, a a trip to a fantastic desert island where you have nothing to do but play music, and I I take it that appeals because music's an important part of your life, isn't it?

Lord Chief Justice Taylor2:49

Very important, yes, very important indeed, and has been ever since I was a child.

Presenter2:53

And how have you chosen these records?

Lord Chief Justice Taylor2:55

I've tried to pick out what I think are the pieces that I could hardly do without, and have some variety, because I think to have uh all Beatham string quartets would be marvellous, but I think one would want something different as well.

Presenter3:08

What's the first one you'll play?

Lord Chief Justice Taylor3:10

Well, the first is uh Mahler's first symphony.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor3:13

I would want to have the sound of a full modern orchestra, and Mara wrote a number of symphonies. I think, however, his first was his best, and the particular part I'm asking for is so beautiful that I think I couldn't have left it behind.

Presenter4:24

Part of the final movement of Mahler's Symphony No. One in D played by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Klaus Tenstett.

Presenter4:31

So you're a lawyer, Lord Taylor, who might have become a professional pianist. Was there a point when you had to choose between the two?

Lord Chief Justice Taylor4:38

Well, there was a very brief moment when I flirted with the idea at at age about seventeen.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor4:44

And then my headmaster sent me off to a musical summer school to play a piano concerto there. And to get there, you had to play an orchestral instrument. So he made me learn the tymps over three weeks at the feet of a tympanist in the Sandler's Wells Ballet, which was visiting Newcastle at the time. And on that basis, I went to this course, played my piano concerto, but met so many musicians there of such talent that I realised that I wasn't really in the same class. And so I came home a wiser boy and decided not to.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor5:12

Become a musician.

Presenter5:14

But you've gone on playing. I mean, you play semi-professionally, do you?

Lord Chief Justice Taylor5:16

I try to keep it up, yeah. Well, I wouldn't say semi-professionally, I play amateurly, but uh within the uh the cloisters of the temple occasionally play uh in charity concerts uh with a couple of uh professional players who I'm I'm happy to think are are willing to play with me. And uh I think only by playing in that sort of concert does one uh have any incentive to keep it up, otherwise you just play the same pieces worse and worse.

Presenter5:42

Uh let's go back to your family and and your boyhood in the thirties and forties in Newcastle. Father was a a doctor.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor5:47

False.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor5:48

Yeah.

Presenter5:48

And your mother taught Hebrew.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor5:50

Taught me Hebrew, yes, and she had taught others when she was younger.

Presenter5:54

But then when you were nine and the war broke out you were evacuated to the Lake District, which by all accounts was quite a a formative experience for you.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor6:01

Oh, indeed, yes. I mean, I went at the age of nine.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor6:04

uh for five years

Lord Chief Justice Taylor6:06

And it was a a very formative time.

Presenter6:09

In what way?

Lord Chief Justice Taylor6:11

Well, first of all, it was a very different household from a sort of middle-class doctor's house. This was a very, very nice lady who was a widow who had a very modest home with no electricity and no inside loo. All the water that one wanted hot had to be boiled, that sort of thing. No bathroom, a zinc bath in front of the fire. And it was also formative because it gave me an enormous love for the Lake District, which I retain, and I go there as often as I can. I love fell walking, and my wife does too, because she was evacuated to Keswick at the same time.

Presenter6:43

And were you were you happy living frugally, or do you remember it as a a a slightly uncomfortable, unhappy experience?

Lord Chief Justice Taylor6:49

I think at first I was very homesick, uh but uh my brother was with me for the first couple of years before he went off to the army, but um I think I really look in retrospect at any rate I enjoyed it.

Presenter7:00

Mm. So you were there for what the best part of four years? Five years. Five years.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor7:01

Five years, five years, yeah.

Presenter7:03

And it it seems reading about you, though, that that that's often mentioned. It it's almost as if in a way it it it forms part of your defence, if you like, when High Court judges are are accused of being an elite with kind of feather bedded backgrounds, that you refer to this experience as having had

Lord Chief Justice Taylor7:15

Glaz.

Presenter7:19

Quite a big effect on you.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor7:20

Well, I think it is relevant, because I'm sure that the impression given to the public at large is that judges are born with silver spoons in their mouths, that they all have been to upper public schools and Oxbridge and so on. Whereas I think quite a lot of judges now have had much more modest backgrounds. They may end up at Oxbridge, but there's nothing wrong with that. That's where people want to go if they can. And if they're bright, they get there.

Presenter7:44

Record number two.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor7:46

Well, I'd like to have um a Schubert song, Aufdim Wassetzuzingen, and I'd particularly like to have it sung by Elizabeth Schumann. This is uh a performance which uh I remember from my boyhood we had on a seventy eight record, and I loved it, played it again and again.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor8:01

And I think it combines that Schubert's capacity for summoning up images of nature and also.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor8:08

A sort of Viennese refinement. The piano accompaniment is marvellous. It ripples in the way that water would. And it's a beautiful performance. I'd like to have it.

Speaker 48:28

Meetanim Shima, Dor Shpiga and Well, and Gleiti Schwener Dorvakon, Ohftaw Freud Zanchiva and Well, and Glait Risen and I Dakon Ofta Freud Zanchiva and Glitter.

Presenter9:17

Elizabeth Schumann singing Schubert's Aufdim Wasser Zusingen, accompanied by Elizabeth Coleman. You were mentioning that people think judges are born with silver spoons in their mouths. When you were appointed Lord Chief Justice, you gave a press conference which was fairly remarkable in itself. And you said, I am not wholly out of touch with mainstream life in this country. You gave it as one of the reasons for qualifying for the job. What did you mean by that?

Lord Chief Justice Taylor9:44

Well, I was meaning that although in the law obviously we live in chambers together, we work in courts together, we have our rooms in the royal courts of justice and the temple is a kind of collegiate atmosphere, I don't think that judges

Lord Chief Justice Taylor10:01

are out of touch with ordinary life. We're kept in touch by other things we do, by our children, by experiences we've had before we've come to the bar, and also at the bar. I spent twenty-six years defending and prosecuting and I think I probably heard case histories from innumerable old lags, which some of which may have been true, some of which probably weren't, but I have a good deal of experience of that sort of life.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor10:26

And I think that perhaps the public don't realize that. That's why I mentioned.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor10:31

Uh what I did.

Presenter10:32

I suppose it's when judges lean down from the bench and say things like, um, who is Gasser? or what are the Beatles? I remember from some years ago.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor10:38

What are the

Lord Chief Justice Taylor10:39

Bring it up.

Presenter10:41

People used to think that was funny. I'm not sure they think it's funny any more. They're not willing to be indulgent anymore. They think it shows that uh that judges can be really rather out of touch with common culture.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor10:50

I agree with you. And unfortunately, a single remark from a judge can be picked up.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor10:55

and is put into a a litany of such remarks, which is trotted out every time a new one arises that in thousands of cases where judges on the whole don't say silly things.

Presenter11:05

But is this general allegation that judges can be out of touch one of the reasons that you want to get rid of wigs and robes?

Presenter11:13

Get rid of the eighteenth-century image.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor11:15

Yes, I think so. I I think that the idea that judges are out of touch is is to an extent linked not wholly, but to to an extent linked to the fact that we wear this eighteenth century costume.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor11:26

I'm not sure about the robes. I think we do need some form of distinction to so that somebody knows who's the judge and who's an usher and who's a a defendant. But I think the Whigs

Lord Chief Justice Taylor11:35

particularly are a gift to cartoonists, they are a gift to columnists.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor11:39

And uh they help to foster an image which I don't think is still true of the judiciary, and I think if we cast them off we would, as I've said before, at a stroke, uh disarm a certain amount of criticism.

Presenter11:50

Next piece of music.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor11:52

Well, I'd like uh Sidney Bechet playing Petit Fleur. It's a a marvellous piece and uh it ev evokes uh the atmosphere of a Parisian nightclub. Not that I've ever been to one, in fact, but I I like like the idea.

Presenter13:07

Sidney Bechet playing Petite Fleur.

Presenter13:10

You went up to Pembroke College, Cambridge, after the war, Lord Taylor, and uh you went on an exhibition to read law, you got a good degree, you came down, and you took your bar finals in December of the same year. That seems like qualifications in record time.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor13:24

Well, I don't know about record time, but it it was, in my opinion, in retrospect, far too fast. I did it by a correspondence course sitting in a library in Newcastle where I lived at the time, and uh

Lord Chief Justice Taylor13:36

I think that it was a bad way of learning the law, and for years afterwards there were gaps in my knowledge of the law which where I decided that bits of the syllabus could be ignored.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor13:45

uh because there was a choice of questions, and that was a very bad way of approaching it. Nowadays uh bar education is very much more thorough and the requirements are much more strict. Then you could do it subject by subject.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor13:56

And now you've got to go to have a full year's course at the Inns of Court School of Law and they teach actually some skills that you will need as a barrister instead of just book learning.

Presenter14:07

But the gaps in your knowledge have been filled over the time, have they?

Lord Chief Justice Taylor14:10

I wouldn't guarantee it.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor14:12

But I can now I can now go and look it up when I need to.

Presenter14:15

You were also um quite a sportsman, rugby and water polo, played both for the county for Northumberland.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor14:20

I played, yes, mostly rugby. I did I did on occasion play for the Northumberland Club at at Water Polo, but uh I uh I captained an accounty at rugby.

Presenter14:29

Do you think that your interest in sport was part of the reason you were chosen to lead the inquiry into the uh Hillsborough football disaster in eighty nine? And did that experience help in any way?

Lord Chief Justice Taylor14:39

I doubt it, really. Uh I did used to go and watch Newcastle United when I was about sixteen or seventeen, but the um the scene then was very different from the scene nowadays. No, I don't think that was why I was asked to do it, but I

Lord Chief Justice Taylor14:52

I found it a fascinating exercise, although really harrowing.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor14:56

And um

Lord Chief Justice Taylor14:57

It was a most uh interesting experience having been in the Court of Appeal to go back and sit and hear live witnesses giving live evidence, having spent so long reading transcripts. I think it's a very good thing that an appeal judge should occasionally try a case with witnesses, just to remind himself what real people are like.

Presenter15:18

You say that you used to stand on the terraces as a boy. Uh uh again, did that experience come back to you when you were inquiring into the hills, but Isasa, do you remember being hemmed in?

Lord Chief Justice Taylor15:25

Well it did, yes, I do remember being s swayed about and uh and and particularly coming out of the ground where uh this vast crowd was uh funnelling through a very narrow way to the steps and how you were catapulted down the steps with your feet off the ground.

Presenter15:40

At the end in the inquiry, you placed the blame squarely on the police and the owners of the ground itself, and obviously hard lessons were learned and the cages that people were crushed against have been removed.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor15:50

People would

Presenter15:52

Do you nevertheless think that such a tragedy could happen again in this country?

Lord Chief Justice Taylor15:58

I hope not. I mean, the the tragedy occurred because of uh a large number of people being let into the a place which was already overcrowded, and being let into a place which was a cage, as you say, so there was no way of getting out.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor16:11

Now I hope that uh there would be a way of getting out and furthermore that uh steps have been taken to prevent too many people getting into the same place. But I still feel that where you have people standing in in numbers and you have the excitement of the match and uh possibly a bit of misconduct, somebody lets off a firework or somebody starts a brawl, there could still be a very nasty crush in standing areas and that's why I'm in favour of having seating.

Presenter16:37

Next record.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor16:39

The next record is Beethoven's String Quartet, one of the last six, opus one hundred and thirty two, in A minor. Apart from the fact that it is a wonderful work, it has a a special interest to me because

Lord Chief Justice Taylor16:51

Some four years ago.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor16:53

Uh my wife was had a major operation.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor16:57

and I went to visit her.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor16:59

And I said uh

Lord Chief Justice Taylor17:00

shall we have some music? and switched on the radio, and on came this uh quartet, and a particular part of it.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor17:07

A slow movement.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor17:08

which is headed A Thanksgiving to God for one recovering from an illness.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor17:13

And there's a particular part of the movement

Lord Chief Justice Taylor17:15

where Beethoven is marked feeling renewed strength and it was just that bit that came on as we switched the radio on and I found that rather encouraging and really rather poignant. But I think I'd like to have the last movement of it if I could.

Presenter18:28

The Italian quartet playing part of the final movement of Beethoven's string quartet number fifteen in A minor, opus a hundred and thirty two.

Presenter18:36

Thirteen years at the bar, and when you were thirty six you became a Q C, Lord Taylor, which is quite young by general standards, isn't it?

Lord Chief Justice Taylor18:42

Yes, I think I think perhaps it's easier to come to to get silk from the circuit where there's less competition perhaps than in London.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor18:50

But uh it was young, yes.

Presenter18:52

What areas did you specialize in?

Lord Chief Justice Taylor18:55

I did a lot of uh criminal cases, both prosecuting and defending.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor18:59

And I also did a lot of personal injuries cases.

Presenter19:01

But you became really a a prominent counsel for the prosecution in the end.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor19:05

Towards the end of my bar career, yes.

Presenter19:07

Yes, you prosecuted John Poulson, the the multi-millionaire who became so by bribing public officials. And you prosecuted in the Jeremy Thorpe case too, in which you were not successful.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor19:15

Yeah.

Presenter19:18

Can you describe to me then the kind of job satisfaction that a a leading counsel seeks? I mean, i is a verdict in your favour, whichever you are, prosecution or defence, of paramount importance?

Lord Chief Justice Taylor19:30

Well, it's always said that uh the Crown uh wins no victories, suffers no defeats, and really the duty when you're prosecuting is simply to lay the facts before the court rather than to press for a conviction. But obviously if you feel that uh you the case is a strong one, you would be disappointed if you failed to uh achieve the result that you think should have followed. Defending is always a challenge, of course, and uh you always like to like to win.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor19:56

Yeah.

Presenter19:56

Defending must be different because, I mean, obviously you can say to yourself, presumably, I'm here to represent

Presenter20:02

My client in the best light possible, so that you might seek to play down some evidence and play up other evidence.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor20:04

Yeah.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor20:08

Certainly. Uh you obviously try to make the best of what material you have and and and play down the difficult parts.

Presenter20:14

So are you saying, though, being a prosecuting counsel is different, that you're not necessarily after a conviction per se, you are rather more objective, you are rather more there to see justice done?

Lord Chief Justice Taylor20:24

Certainly, you are in effect a Minister of Justice and you though there are rules uh of conduct about uh making sure that all the material's available.

Presenter20:33

If they are therefore that different, which role did you prefer, having done both?

Lord Chief Justice Taylor20:37

I enjoyed doing both, I must confess. It's less hair raising to be a prosecutor, because you're not frightened that if you put a foot wrong something awful's going to emerge, and if if it if something awful emerges, well that's then it should do so, in the interest of justice. But if you're defending

Lord Chief Justice Taylor20:50

and you ask uh a question uh that's uh not very wise, you may get an answer that uh you don't like, and then that's rather worrying.

Presenter20:59

I suppose one of the awful things that's emerged for you from one of the cases that you prosecuted in was that a a man has after all turned out to be innocent, and that was Stefan Kiskow, who was uh convicted of uh wrongfully convicted of the murder of a little girl and has recently been released after serving sixteen years in jail.

Presenter21:16

I understand that you can't talk about the case in detail, but can I ask you what it makes you feel personally? I mean, do you have a sense of of regret or guilt or?

Presenter21:25

When you suddenly hear that you prosecuted a man and he was wrongfully convicted.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor21:29

I certainly have a a sense of regret, uh of course. And and I think it's very salutary to realize that in a case where you were totally unaware that there was anything that uh would have revealed uh innocence uh had you known it, uh the case can go wrong. And it's a very salutary uh lesson that we are dealing as human beings with matters in which we are bound to be fallible.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor21:52

and therefore one can't guarantee that a a case will necessarily

Lord Chief Justice Taylor21:56

never arise again where there has been an injustice done, but we do our best. And of course when it when it's proved afterwards that it's gone wrong, one feels regret, but not necessarily guilt, because one does one's best at the time on the information one has.

Presenter22:10

And have you talked to other judges about this, judges who or indeed counsel who have presided or appeared in cases where there have been, as it turns out, miscarriages of justice? I mean, i i what do they feel? What do they say about what has happened and what's happened to them?

Lord Chief Justice Taylor22:27

Well, we have had a a number of cases of miscarriage of justice revealed recently, and I think it has made judges realise that they've got to be particularly astute to see that they are fair in their summings up. But when all's said and done, the jury hears the witnesses, the jury hears the evidence, and they return the verdict.

Presenter22:45

Certainly, but on the day if if the jury is in two minds and then the judge in his summing up comes down fiercely on one side and believe in one version of events rather than another, then they are going to be influenced. Perhaps judges shouldn't do that in the same way.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor22:58

I absolutely agree. I think that we've got to be on our guard against that. Of course, in in the United States the judge only directs the jury on the law. He doesn't venture into the field of the facts at all. We have a Royal Commission now sitting on the criminal justice system. One of the matters they may be considering is what the role of the judge in summing up should be in future.

Presenter23:17

But you believe, generally speaking, he should be a little more objective.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor23:21

Well, I think jo judges mostly are, but every now and then a judge does go perhaps over the top a little in in in emphasising what he sees as being the stronger evidence for the Crown than for the defence. And I think that the recent cases have brought that very much uh to mind, and people will have it in mind now.

Presenter23:37

Uh no.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor23:37

Uh

Presenter23:39

Record number five.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor23:41

Well, I'd like some opera, and I've chosen the trio from the first act of Cosifantute, which is called So ave sia vento, May the Winds Be Gentle, and I hope that uh if anybody's coming to rescue Michien Ver Island that the same will apply.

Speaker 424:00

So

Speaker 424:09

Oh free.

Speaker 424:40

Seven.

Presenter25:00

Ivan Minton, Hans Soutine, and Margaret Price singing sua vecia il vento from the first act of Mozart's Cosi fan tute, with the new Philharmonia orchestra conducted by Otto Klempere.

Presenter25:11

You've acknowledged, Lord Taylor, on your appointment as Lord Chief Justice, that there's a a crisis of confidence, I think is the phrase that's been used in the judiciary following the notorious miscarriages of justice we've referred to, the Birmingham six, the Guildford four, the Tottenham three.

Presenter25:27

Obviously it's part of your job to restore that confidence. What are you going to do?

Lord Chief Justice Taylor25:32

Well, I I don't want to play with words, but I think crisis of confidence is perhaps slightly overstating it. Certainly the cases that you've mentioned have uh caused people to have some anxiety about the uh efficacy of the judicial system.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor25:47

To that extent we are all concerned, and we do intend to do what we can to repair the the damage.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor25:53

I think the we must wait for any major changes to see what the Royal Commission that I've mentioned recommends.

Presenter25:59

What do you say to those people who feel, perhaps with some justification, that the judiciary are too willing to believe police evidence in preference to other evidence?

Lord Chief Justice Taylor26:08

Well, I I I'd rather doubt that, frankly. I myself have, as I said, spent many years defending and prosecuting cases, and I've been very conscious from time to time that the police have quite clearly not been telling the truth. I think there are cases where the police feel they know who did the crime. They haven't got strong enough evidence, and they have in the past tended to try and guild the lily. Sometimes it's been a perfectly true case, but they've spoilt it by this kind of evidence. And I hope that they too will have learnt from this series of miscarriages that it is counterproductive to try and create evidence if there isn't any, or to try and improve evidence by fabrication, and that's fundamental.

Presenter26:52

Next piece of music.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor26:54

Well, I did intend to have no piano music in this series of records because I wouldn't like to hear somebody playing better than me, and that would be almost inevitable. But there's one field of piano playing which I would like to have been able to achieve something, and I'm afraid I've failed, because I don't have the rhythmic ability, and that's the sort of music played by Fat Swallow, of which I'm very fond. I think he produces the most marvellous rhythmic presti digitation, and this is a very good example of it, Carolina Schout.

Presenter28:21

That's Waller and Carolina Sharp. So you just can't play like that.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor28:25

No, I've I've got the music for that and I've tried it many times and it just dies at the end of my fingers, I'm afraid. I just don't have the rhythmic ability to give what it takes.

Presenter28:32

D do you use the piano? I mean, do you sit down and use it to think by, as it were? If you've got a knotty problem, do you sit and

Lord Chief Justice Taylor28:38

No, I do it really to relax. It's the only thing I do that I really lose myself in and uh

Lord Chief Justice Taylor28:45

Don't realize what time it is.

Presenter28:47

Really? So it just takes up all your concentration. It's somewhere else to go. Yes. Away from your your worries.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor28:47

So it just

Lord Chief Justice Taylor28:49

Somewhere else to go.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor28:52

That's right.

Presenter28:53

Um one of the other major responsibilities of the Lord Chief Justice is, of course, sentencing. You are in effect the the final arbiter of sentencing policy. Other courts take their lead from you. Do you agree?

Presenter29:06

as the public seems to feel that there is a need for greater consistency, that that one rapist or one drunk driver should not be sentenced to significantly fewer years than another.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor29:17

Well, it all depends on the particular case. What what I'm afraid very often happens is that the press or the public become anxious about a a sentence which they see as being out of line with other sentences, but very often the case is not reported in a way which shows what the particular facts were, and there's v often very good reason why one case gets a a heavier sentence or a lighter sentence than another.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor29:39

But having said that, where you're dealing with something which is necessarily not uh mathematically determined by a computer, but by a judge who exercises an independent discretionary judgment, you are going to get differences. Uh and I'm afraid I don't think that we can uh absolutely avoid that. What we can try to do is to keep uh a reasonable bracket.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor30:01

of a range of sentences for particular kinds of offence, that the previous Lord Chief Justice very much advanced by

Lord Chief Justice Taylor30:10

uh giving guidelines from time to time on particular kinds of offences, for example, rape or theft from employers and so on. And those guidelines are simply guides. They are not absolute rules which must be followed in every case.

Presenter30:25

But it does mean that you can then have shocking anomalies, rather like uh y you can have the a husband who murders a nagging wife going free and a a a wife who murders a brutal and drunken husband being sentenced to life imprisonment.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor30:39

Well, I think the cases that you're referring to um

Lord Chief Justice Taylor30:42

What happened was that in one case there there was a defence of provocation and in the other there wasn't. And the the law on provocation at the moment is that provocation applies only where you on an instant lose self-control. If you take some time to go and get a knife and come back with it, then the law at the moment is, and this is not for judges to change, the law is that that that is not provocation. It may be that um we need to reconsider that law because sometimes

Lord Chief Justice Taylor31:11

There's not a time for cooling down, but a time for realising what's happened and heating up. And so provocation may be something that needs to be reviewed, but that would have to be by Parliament.

Presenter31:21

Record number seven.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor31:24

Well, this is, I think, the most sublime piece of chamber music I know, Schubert's string quintet. And I would like to have the slow movement, which is ethereal in its quality. It just seems to hang and there are shifting harmonies, but otherwise it just seems to be quite timeless.

Presenter32:38

Part of the slow movement of Schubert's string quintet in C major, played by the Albanberg Quartet with Heinrich Schiff.

Presenter32:45

Will you be attempting to escape, Lord Taylor, from this desert island we're condemning you to?

Lord Chief Justice Taylor32:51

Well, it rather depends how I get on with my DIY. I shall try and make myself some kind of vessel, but I'm not very good at DIY. I once bought a a strip of three hooks to go on the bedroom door for dressing gowns from Woolworths, and after I'd screwed them in, I found that the hooks were pointing downwards. So that's my DIY ability. But if if I can make something, I'll try and get away on it.

Presenter33:14

What sort of effect, though, do you think that kind of incarceration will have on you? Do you think you'll get bored or depressed or maudlin or?

Lord Chief Justice Taylor33:22

I think I would. I very much need company, and uh I shall lack it, I'm afraid.

Presenter33:27

We can always supply you with a few mail bags to sew, I suppose. What would you be most pleased to have escaped from?

Lord Chief Justice Taylor33:34

Oh, I think work, probably.

Presenter33:36

Simply that.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor33:39

No, I think and also the hassle of city life which

Presenter33:41

Uh

Lord Chief Justice Taylor33:42

The the the the the smog and the uh and the noise and the traffic and the frustrations.

Presenter33:47

So the the peace and the tranquillity will be welcome. And as you sit there contemplating your life and and the choices that you've made.

Presenter33:56

Will you for one moment wish that you'd persevered and become a concert pianist, or will you be happy that you chose the law?

Lord Chief Justice Taylor34:04

I think that uh I'll be happy I chose the law. I've enjoyed my time in the law very much indeed. I think probably my time at the bar most.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor34:12

But uh

Lord Chief Justice Taylor34:14

I might uh improve my performance on the piano with the luxury I propose to take.

Presenter34:19

which we shall hear about in one second, but we shall have your last record.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor34:23

Well, the last record is Mozart's um Jupiter Symphony, which I should like because it's so

Lord Chief Justice Taylor34:29

cheerful and uplifting.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor34:31

And I particularly like the last movement, which is a miracle of uh construction, although you are not conscious of the the miracles of technical achievement of Mozart. When you hear it, it just sounds so natural. But uh we perhaps have the last part where he plays about four different themes altogether, and it ends in a cheerful, triumphant mood, which I think I would need to restore my spirits.

Presenter35:48

Mozart's Symphony No. forty one in C The Jupiter, played by the London Classical Players, conducted by Roger Norrington. So which of the eight records would be the most important to you there?

Lord Chief Justice Taylor35:57

I think it would have to be the Jupiter.

Presenter35:59

And your book, as well as the Bible and Shakespeare?

Lord Chief Justice Taylor36:02

Well, I've taken War and Peace on a number of holidays, and I've never managed to finish it, so this might be the opportunity. I think I'd take War and Peace.

Presenter36:09

And your luxury.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor36:10

A a a piano, a grand piano pref for preference.

Presenter36:13

I think

Presenter36:14

This is where I'm supposed to say you have to promise not to live underneath it.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor36:18

Oh, I promise not to live underneath it, yes.

Presenter36:19

And what's more, I believe you. Lord Taylor of Gospel, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island is.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor36:23

Okay.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor36:25

Thank you very much. I've enjoyed it.

Speaker 336:34

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.